3.5 magnitude earthquake centered near Milpitas rattles the South Bay

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An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 3.5 struck Sunday morning about 10 miles north of San Jose, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

According to the USGS, the earthquake occurred about 7:47 a.m. and had a depth of 5.2 miles. The quake was centered about six miles east of Milpitas and seven miles north of Alum Rock, the USGS said.

No damage was reported, police said. And there were no aftershocks as of Sunday night.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the earthquake was along the Calaveras Fault. Earthquakes happen miles underground, and seismologists will need to study data to determine where it occurred, the USGS said.

In October 2007, a 5.4 temblor on the Calaveras, a 60-mile fault stretching from Hollister to north of San Ramon, was felt throughout Silicon Valley. Damage was mostly moderate, but the top three floors of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library in downtown San Jose were closed after hundreds of thousands of books were hurled to the floor. At Reid-Hillview Airport in East San Jose, the quake broke two large glass panels in the control tower.

Earlier Sunday, another earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 2.1 struck in Sonoma County. That quake had a depth of 1.1 miles and was centered two miles north of The Geysers and 12 miles east of Cloverdale.

“These are pretty small,” said Leslie Gordon of the USGS. “I’d be surprised if anyone even felt the 2.1.”

Still, scores of Bay Area residents are in the habit of racing to the USGS Web site and responding to the site’s “Did you feel it?” feature, which prompts residents to enter their ZIP code and address, then describe any details of the quake.

“A lot of people look at our Web site every day, whether there’s an earthquake or not,” Gordon said.

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